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Topic: Three New Nucs (Read 3551 times)

I had been toying with the idea of getting some more Bee's, as my understanding of them increases my desire to have more grows. Well to cut a long story short, three of the strongest Nuc's I've ever seen were delivered to my front door from Kangaroo Island last thursday. Wow they are the busiest, cleanest Bee's I've ever seen.Even though its winter here and around 15 degrees Celsius they are haulin in the Pollen and are flat out. They make my other three hives look lazy. I can't wait until Spring.

would love some more infowho did you get them from?how much for postage, KI queen bees advertise them for $130 plus GST, but i don't know about postagehow was the survival rate? we're not in an express post area, i wonder how they'd survivei'm interested in trying different genetics

Hi guys thanks for the comments. Hi Tina, I got my nucs from Stephen Heatley from Kangaroo Island and these Bee's are goers!!I must be a lucky fella because Steve delivered them to my front door himself. He was on his way to Brissy QLD to deliver some other nucs and I was lucky enough to secure three on his way through 8-).

The price you quoted is right and he is a real nice bloke. As far as fatalities, there were very few I think from what Steve said he had broken up the trip with a few stops to give the girls a fly.

Hi Steve, you should be very happy with your K.I. bees. I purchased 2 nucs from Stephen back in August last year and then a new Queen in March for another hive. You will find them good to work with as they are a fairly placid bee.

hi got ten kI queens sent to me last year all ten were alive when they reached me out at westmare qld.had to nurse them along to do with all the floods we had the tree didnt flower.i put them in to nucs and they all took okay.touch wood i haven't lost any yet . been feeding them since i made them up .noticed allthe box have budded up early this season out her.could be in for a good spring.

Well I checked out one of my new nucs and found it to be queen-less and no brood,But heaps of Bee's. After a little bit of panic at the possibility of losing my hive I got it together I think.

I went to my strongest new nuc and took a strong frame of brood which had the smallest eggs in the hive.After I removed all of the nurse Bee's I placed this frame in the middle of my Queen less hive.

What I am concerned about is that at the moment it is Winter here and there are no Drones to be seen, but I did see some sealed Drone cells in my Queen-less hive. So would there still be feral Drones looking for a Queen at this time of the year?

If you're in doubt as to the success of any emergency queen that might be produced then i would suggest combining your queenless hive with a queenright hive and then, when you have sufficient drones flying, take some frames of capped brood, a frame of open eggs and shake a few frames of bees, in to an empty nuc and then let them raise an emergency queen and give her a greater chance at being successfully mated.

Yeah good advise OzBuzz, I will leave then alone for a week and check for Queen cells, and then wait another 4 and check it out. Then do the combine if I have to, Bee Keeping two steps forward and one back!

I don't quite understand. You said the hive is queenless but has capped brood? Is it only drone brood or worker brood too? If there is capped brood the queen could have only disappeared a short time ago, or the alternative is she's cut down on laying for the winter. That's happened a bit here when we had a cold spell recently, and your temperatures are probably a little lower than ours. I've also found it really hard here to balance the fact that nucs won't forage as much because they don't have the numbers and then the queen won't lay as much because there's not as much food coming in. Have you thought about feeding?Let us know what happens.

Hi Lone, there is about 10 to 15 capped drone cells, no worker cells with either eggs,grubs etc. I thought that these capped drone cells would be layed by a worker..........?? I Know a Queen can also choose to lay Drones (lol)When these Drone hatch they would be just normal drones wouldn't they? So they could mate with the emergency Queen that I am trying to get?

They have heaps of stores and are pulling in Pollen like maniacs. Maybe you could be right about the Queen simply not laying, I hadn't thought about that.

I suppose when I check for Queen cells next week that should be a fair indication as to whether there is a Queen in there having a rest..

Apparently drone brood takes 3 days longer to hatch, so these might be just the last of the brood. A queen lays drone eggs when the conditions are right, and a few drones are a sign of a healthy hive. If you don't see any hatched drones in the hive, maybe they have had a drone kill, which they will do for instance when it's cold or not enough supplies. But if you notice drones in any of your hives, there will certainly be more around in the bush. It's unlikely you have a laying worker, because she'd be laying a lot more drone brood than what you've got. What are your temperatures at the moment?Remember that cold climate hives basically hibernate for the winter, so try not to worry about a queen not laying or even a queenless hive. You said there are good numbers of bees, so you probably just need to observe what is happening for a while as you are doing. Try not to disturb them too much during the time period they might be making an emergency queen. I lost a queen once and they basically filled the hive up with pollen, so it's hard to know if they are simply excited about the eggs you added or it's a sign of queenlessness! And can you hear them sounding upset like they do when they have no queen? I am no good at working out the different noises.Lone